The Chronicles of Kid Chronic
by mailroomorder
Summary: When Blaine is 13, runs away. Not in a fake way where he packs his bags and heads to the playground for an hour. He escapes to Columbus where he stays for a little under 2 weeks before he's picked up by a cop and returned home. This is the story of him out on his own, and it looks back on the past few years of his life. Contains the molestation of a minor. FULL SUMMARY INSIDE
1. Chapter 1

**Full Sumary:**

From the ages of 6-16, Blaine is consistently raped by his baseball coach Paul-a surrogate uncle of his. Blaine meets Paul when he is 6 and his parents sign him up for tee ball. Paul takes an instant liking to Blaine and easily integrates himself into the Andersons' lives, quickly becoming a mentor to Blaine and a close friend of his parents.

When he is 13 he runs away. Not in a fake way where he packs his bags and heads to the playground for an hour. He escapes to Columbus where he stays for a little under 2 weeks before he's picked up by a cop and returned home. This is the story of him out on his own, and it looks back on the past few years of his life.

**This story contains the molestation of a minor. There are NO graphic depictions, but there are allusions and images that may be triggering. Please, read at your own risk.**

**Also, there is a LOT of details between the lines. The names of the characters, the way Blaine thinks, the way people look, the words that are used are all chosen for VERY specific reasons. If you have any questions as to why I did what I did, or if you want to know what some of those words/actions are, let me know. My Tumblr is .com, and this story is rebloggable there.  
**

* * *

Sometimes your best friend is also your worst enemy.

* * *

When he's thirteen, he runs away from home for the first time.

It's calculated, though. He spends the weeks following up to it doing extra chores for extra allowance and stealing the occasional five or ten from his parents' wallets. He packs a camping backpack with some clothes, a blanket, and a few books.

The day he leaves he wears two pairs of underwear and shorts, with baggy sweatpants on top. He layers on the shirts and socks, too, and ties a jacket around his waist.

It's the end of the school year—the beginning of summer—and Blaine has two weeks until camp starts. His parents both work full time jobs, so Blaine knows they won't be home all day. It'll be easier to get out sometime in those two weeks, he assumes. Camp won't report him absent, and he'll have all day to leave and get as far as possible before his parents get home and notice he's not there for dinner.

Blaine's been thinking about this for a while. He has Mapquest maps of his town printed out and packed away in his backpack, crackers and chips and other non-perishable items set aside under his bed to take when he leaves, and a Post-It Note with all of the important names and numbers that he can think of written on both sides. He's preared.

He doesn't bring his cell phone. He doesn't bring his school ID. He is carrying a card in his wallet with his blood type and allergies, though. Granted, he's always had that in his wallet.

For all of the things that Blaine _does_ think of, where he's going isn't in the forefront of his mind. He just wants to get _out_. To get _away_.

He leaves on a Wednesday.

He gets bored a half an hour into his walk and realizes that a destination probably would have been a smart thing to consider. But instead of dwelling on his lack of preparedness, he decides to head to the closest city. He figures it will be easier to find something to do in a city anyway. In all of the movies he's seen with runaway kids or children on their own, it's always in a city. Eloise lives in the plaza. Kevin survives on his own in New York City when his parents forget him on a holiday trip. If they made it on their own, then so can he.

Blaine has been to Columbus countless times before. He grew up driving into the city with his parents and going to museums and parks, walking around and trying different foods. He's never gotten there via public transportation, but he fakes his way there.

He spends the whole day walking around the city before passing out on a park bench.

The life of a runaway is not glamorous.

* * *

Blaine's always been very shy, with a soft personality to boot. He's quiet and a bit dweeby. He is obsessed with comic books and watching big, strong men fight injustice and wrongdoing. He loves the X-Men because everything they do they do as a team.

He relates to Spiderman because everything he does he does alone.

Blaine will sometimes sit alone at night with his head under the covers, wondering if he'd still be the same passive and compliant boy he is now if what happened to him seven years ago didn't happen.

He wonders if he'd have more friends and be more talkative and outgoing if Paul hadn't chosen him when he was six years old and wearing an oversized baseball cap and a blue t-shirt that always slipped off his shoulders.

Blaine won't look at pictures of himself from that time period. His parents always shake their heads and roll their eyes, saying it must be the pubescent hormones. They think he's embarrassed. But finally, after years of turning down every picture frame and hiding every photo album that featured a toothless grin of six year old him, his parents relent. They start replacing the photos in the frames with older ones, or newer ones. They put coffee table books out for people to peruse rather than family photo albums.

It's a huge weight off of Blaine's shoulders.

He really hates his six year old self.

* * *

The second day in Columbus goes about as well as his first. He walks around looking at apartment buildings and dreaming of what his life will be like from now on. Grandiose visions of school and friends and fun fill his head. He's laughing and smiling in every daydream.

He doesn't even have to work that hard to push down the part of his brain that's trying to tell him that it's not possible, that it will never be possible.

He makes his way through a bag of Goldfish that day, and fills up his reusable water bottle at a water fountain he finds in a Starbucks. Then he makes his way back to the park and finishes his book.

All in all, the first few days go well. Sleeping on benches isn't his favorite thing—nor is sleeping on the ground—but he keeps promising himself that something will come up and he'll have a bed to relax in at some point.

When he reads all of the books he's brought, he begins spending his entire days in Barnes & Nobles, ransacking the fantasy section and the graphic novels. It's easy to forget where he is and what he's done when he's wrapped up in fantastical worlds. He keeps to himself mostly. In general, not many people come up to quiet and unassuming thirteen year old boy with scrawny shoulders, a mop of curly hair, and a forgettable face. It's how he's been able to fly under the radar all these years.

When the mood strikes he writes in his journal.

The mood, however, normally strikes at night when he's alone in the park and it's too dark to read and all the Bad Thoughts come surging into his head. It's too dark outside to see what he's writing, but it's too dark in his head to keep everything bottled up. In the mornings he'll page through his journal and look at the sloppy scrawl. Sometimes it's completely illegible—lines upon lines written over each other so often that it's turned into a twister of unrecognizable scribble. Other times it's surprisingly legible, just veering above or below the line.

_I should have brought a flashlight_, he thinks to himself a few times.

On the fifth night he begins hanging out downtown where the streetlights stay on late into the night, giving off just enough light to doodle on the blank sheets of paper he brought with him.

He's creating a comic book. Sort of.

* * *

Paul is like an uncle to Blaine. A really cool uncle who teaches him about sports and buys him toys and gives him candy. The kind of person who has a pool in his backyard and lets the neighborhood kids use it whenever they want to. He believes in "sharing the wealth," as he always says.

He's not rich by any means. He's just a single thirty-something year old guy with light, dirty blonde hair and strong biceps. His killer smile leaves girls shaking and stunned, unable to wipe the silly grin off their faces.

His eyes are green and trusting, his voice compassionate.

He's always around when you need him, and the first year Blaine knows Paul, Blaine needs him _a lot_.

He needs help playing baseball. He needs help learning how to swim. He gets his first big kid bike that year, and Paul and his father help teach him how to use it during a barbecue they have in Paul's backyard.

Afterwards they swim in his pool, and Paul throws a lightweight Blaine into the air and catches him as he comes back down and falls into the water.

Blaine smiles so much that summer that it's nearly impossible to find a picture or a video where his toothy grin isn't front and center.

He hates seeing those smiles. He was such an attention whore when he was younger.

But Paul is an awesome guy. Everyone thinks so. Especially Blaine's parents. He becomes so integrated into their daily life that Blaine doesn't even knock on his door when he goes over to his house. Paul doesn't knock on their door either.

He babysits Blaine when his parents go out and he takes him to carnivals and fairs and amusement parks.

In the second grade, a few months before Blaine turns seven, he takes Paul to Bring Your Parents to School Day.

But sometimes your best friend is also your worst enemy.

* * *

Kid Chronic is the name of Blaine's cloaked alter ego.

He created the superhero when he was nine, lying in someone else's bed with tears silently falling down his face as his arms lay limp across his bare chest.

At first, Kid Chronic is twelve, because when Blaine was nine he thought that twelve year olds were the strongest, bravest people there were.

Now that he's thirteen he realizes that twelve year olds are just as pathetic and spineless as nine year olds, and Kid Chronic, while still a kid, becomes ageless.

But no matter how old he is, Kid Chronis is _strong_. He wears green, because in Blaine's childhood brain green means good and red means bad, and that's how he knows which characters in _Star Wars_ are good or bad—by the colors of their lightsabers. He knows sometimes that good people wear red, though; Spiderman wears red and the Green Goblin wears green. But Blaine doesn't care about that. Kid Chronic wears green and he's a good guy. He fights evil.

His super powers are strength—especially in hand-to-hand combat—and speed. If he's ever trapped in a corner, he can easily push whoever is blocking him in and get out. He can also jump really high. _Nobody_ can overpower Kid Chronic. His other super power is telling the truth. Because sometimes people can't tell the truth, and Blaine thinks that's wrong. He doesn't like it when people can't tell the truth, so Kid Chronic tells the truth for them. Sometimes big people don't believe the truth when little kids say it, but Kid Chronic makes sure that _everyone _is listening to him. He doesn't have to try that hard, though. Everyone listens to Kid Chronic. He's a superhero.

Blaine writes Kid Chronic comics like Stan Lee writes X-Men comics—there are so many interfering storylines that it's sometimes hard to keep track of where each character is and what they're doing. And any character that has once died can absolutely come back to life.

Kid Chronic's biggest nemesis is The Soul Crusher: a tall and muscular hybrid man with four arms that can stretch like a rubber band. His face is contorted into a permanently twisted smile reminiscent of Fun House mirrors, and his skin is dull and grey. He's ugly and ruthless, with missing teeth and a balding head, pointy sharp teeth and nails that grow in a matter of seconds. They can cut skin like Wolverine can cut metal—easily and without a second thought.

Blaine first learned the word chronic when he was four and his mom was crying on the couch.

"What's wrong, mommy?" Blaine asked her, a little frightened as to why his mother was acting like that.

Turns out Uncle Michael—his mom's brother—died. He battled chronic liver disease most of his life, and the week after his death that word was thrown around all the time.

"But what's it mean?" Blaine asked his parents every chance he could.

His father bent down to his level and took Blaine's hands in his own, squeezing them gently.

"It means all the time," his dad has said. "When something is around all the time and it won't go away."

"Like a bug bite?" Blaine asked, eyes wide as he soaked in this new information.

"No, buddy. Like if you had the chicken pox _forever_, then it would be chronic. Or if you had a cold every day for the rest of your life and it never went away. That's chronic."

"Oh," Blaine replied.

The only reason why his four year old brain held onto that word was because from that day forward he was terrified that if he ever got sick it would never go away. A couple months after his Uncle Michael's death, Blaine got strep throat. He had an absolute meltdown which led to him sleeping in his parents' room for two weeks straight, until they _promised_ him that any time he got sick, he would always get better.

* * *

It's been a week since he ran away from home, and Blaine isn't in any rush to get back.

He misses his parents, and he cries himself to sleep, but he's never felt more secure than he does now—sleeping in a wide open park with all of his possessions at his feet.

It never crosses his mind that he's living on the streets. No, this is just a temporary resting place until he can find a home to live in. He'll invite his parents to his new place. They can move in with him.

His parents are _awesome_. They are fun and supportive. They give the _best_ hugs, and they're always there if Blaine needs to talk. They also respect his privacy, and if Blaine doesn't want to talk about something then they don't push it. Unless it's something important that he _has_ to talk about, like his health or his grades or why he thinks it's okay to talk back to them.

Really, though, he _loves_ them. And he misses them. And he wishes more than ever that he had his cell phone on him so he could call them. He knows they miss him—he misses them, too. But it's better this way if he stays here and they stay there.

_No one will need to know_.

He knows Paul misses him, too.

Paul was going to spend these two weeks hanging out with Blaine and keeping him company. Paul's an IT manager and can often make his own hours or work from home. Blaine has no idea what that means or what he does, he just knows that Paul's pretty much always around.

He is _always_ around.

And he was going to be around this week to watch over Blaine while his parents worked. His pool had just been opened, and he promised Blaine that they could break it in together. On Saturday of that week, there was going to be a barbecue at his place with Blaine's parents and a few other neighborhood families.

It's Wednesday evening now, four days since the scheduled barbecue, and Blaine wonders how it went. He wonders _if_ it went.

He hopes his parents aren't freaking out. He hits himself in the head that night for not leaving a message.

_I should have left a message_, he writes in his journal that night under a lamp. _Then they might not worry. They're probably worrying now. They shouldn't though. Because I'm okay. I wonder if they're looking for me? They probably are, but they shouldn't._

He walks back to the park and finds the bench he prefers to sleep on. He snivels and snuffs and tries to not cry, but it doesn't work.

He can't stop his brain from working—he can't turn it off. He just wants to go home and sleep in his bed. He wants a hug from his mom and a hug from his dad. The tears don't stop. They get bigger and bigger until he's all out bawling—almost silently—on the bench, rubbing his palms over his eyes.

He physically has to stop himself from going home that night. Or from finding a payphone.

He opens his journal to an older entry to help keep his resolve.

It makes him cry more, but reading about what happened two weeks ago in the front seat of Paul's Acura reminds Blaine that it's better to be sad, alone, and safe than sad, alone, and not safe.

* * *

Blaine hates his six year old self because of how happy and unassuming he is.

Whenever he looks back on his childhood, all he sees is _that stupid kid with that stupid grin who has no idea what's about to come. He's a fucking idiot._

Kids can be so naïve and dumb.

Kid Chronic once saved a seven year old boy from being eaten by a water monster who looked a lot like an octopus. He liked to lure boys into the lake and subsequently drown them so he can suck up their life forces.

Kid Chronic beat the crap out of River Shadow and saved the one boy, Connor, from imminent death.

The plot twist, though, is in the details.

River Shadow lives in a small town called Lake Haven. It's situated around a humongous lake that people used to go fishing on and swimming in, but pollution made it really dirty and contaminated. The contamination turned River Monster into an evil villain—he used to be a normal person. He drowned in the contaminated lake and was transformed into a humanoid octopus.

A lot of kids visit the lake because there's nothing else to do in the town, and because their parents always tell them not to go there.

Kids always do the opposite of what they're told.

The problem is, no adults ever go there. So when kids see something in the water and run home to tell their parents, they don't believe the kids.

That's how River Shadow is able to claim the lives of so many young boys; whenever kids come screaming that the river monster killed their friends, parents just shake it off, believing it to be an overactive imagination or the way they deal with grief.

Because no one believes kids.

Kid Chronic, though, he believes kids. He believes in the truth. And sometimes people don't believe the truth, but Kid Chronic will _make_ them believe in the truth. Because the truth is the truth, and the truth matters.

So when kids from Lake Haven send Kid Chronic a bunch of letters telling him that he needs to come and save them, he goes immediately.

River Shadow isn't the easiest villain to beat. He's ginormous, and his tentacles span half the length of the lake and are heavy enough to crush a car. River Shadow also moves alarmingly fast, and he can retreat into the dark caves beneath the lake—so far down that no human can get there.

But Kid Chronic perseveres, and after a long battle with River Shadow, he's able to defeat the monster and cut off one of his tentacles as proof before saving Connor, who is drowning in the lake.

He doesn't have to perform mouth-to-mouth with Connor. Just a few hard pats on Connor's chest is enough to miraculously cause him to spit up the water in his lungs and wake up.

Kid Chronic walks Connor back home, dragging the fifty yard tentacle behind him, and after Connor recounts the whole story to his neighborhood (_without_ Kid Chronic's help, because Connor can speak for himself and doesn't need anyone talking for him) everyone apologizes to their children and promises them that they will always listen to what they say.

Blaine's really proud of that story. It's important to teach morals in comic books.

* * *

Blaine is twelve. He's in the seventh grade.

His balls have just began to drop and his penis is definitely bigger than it was a year ago. His voice still hasn't deepened, but occasionally it will crack, and he has peach fuzz under his armpits.

He's a late bloomer. Or at least, that's what his parents and doctor tell him. Most of his friends have armpit hair and pre-pubescent mustaches. His friend John told him in the locker room at gym class that he has loads of hair on his balls and thighs.

Blaine's still puny and underweight. He's average height, but because of how scrawny and twiggy he is, he's frequently presumed to be smaller than everyone. He hunches a lot, too. He blends into the crowd. But while all of his friends race towards puberty and have begun looking like real boys and have started acting like teenagers, Blaine lags behind at the starting line.

He has wet dreams though. And while parents and teachers and doctors and pamphlets and his middle school health classes tell him that it's normal, Blaine knows it's not.

Most kids wake up from wet dreams feeling confused or vaguely horny. Blaine wakes up crying, the guilt crushing him down so hard that he almost can't breathe. He's thrown up a few times afterwards. His breathing becomes quick and shallow and he can't get enough air into his lungs and the snot that's dripping out of his nose clogs the airway and he's coughing too which makes it even harder to catch his breath so he starts clawing at his chest with his nails sharp as knives hoping he can scratch his way into his lungs and pop them open with his nails and force them to open up more so he can breath and relax but his body's still tense and his tears are still silent.

No matter how long he cries, his tears are still silent.

No matter how loud he cries, it falls upon deaf ears. Upon blind eyes.

He hates puberty. He hates that it hasn't happened to him yet.

He hates how Paul makes all these suggestive remarks.

"One day you'll have chest hair," he smiles at Blaine while Blaine's eating a burger on Paul's patio. Blaine's parents are there, and they laugh.

"Yeah," his father says. "My boy's becoming a man." He claps Blaine on the back.

Later that night Paul whispers into Blaine's ear from above him how beautiful his hairless body is—how he'll never be as pretty as he is now.

* * *

The eleventh and twelfth days after running away from home are pure hell.

Blaine can't even make it to Barnes & Nobles because he's too busy crying in a secluded corner of the park.

He misses home _so badly_. He wants his mom. He wants his mom to hug him and kiss him and tell him everything's all right.

He has more panic attacks in those two days than he thinks he's ever had _ever_. He's so upset and scared and everything is crashing down on him at once.

_He ran away from home_.

No, that's not right, he tells himself.

He ran away from Paul.

But he's tried that before—tried ignoring Paul and not going to his house and dropping out of baseball. But it never works. It never works because Paul always finds a way back into Blaine's life, and Blaine will never be in control of his body.

He gets picked up by a police officer on rainy Day Thirteen, and Blaine is so tired and hungry and sad that he doesn't even try to run away or turn down the offer of a dry place to stay and a hot meal.

After being taken to the local precinct and refusing to give a name—really, refusing to talk—the police officer figures out who he is.

Apparently there's an Amber Alert for him.

His parents get to Columbus before Blaine is even told that the police know who he is.

His mom comes running into the office Blaine's been sitting in and grabs him, tears streaming down her face, her hair in a loose ponytail and no make-up on.

"Baby," she cries, full body sobs that Blaine can feel vibrate against his chest, causing him to cry, too. "I missed you so much."

They hug and cry and hug some more, even tighter. Before Blaine realizes it another person has joined the hug, and Blaine is surrounded by his parents in the office of a Columbus police station wondering why it is that he left them in the first place.

For twenty minutes they stay in that room and cry and hug. Blaine cries hardest of them all.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he keeps sobbing in repetition. "Please don't be mad," he says.

"We're not, honey. We're not," they promise, rubbing his forehead and wiping the tears off of his face. He almost refuses to look them in the eyes. Not out of guilt, but because unlatching himself from their embrace makes him feel faulty and unbalanced. Having them hold him make him feel safe and whole.

After twenty minutes his mom pulls away from the embrace—but still holds his hand tightly. His father has his hand firmly on Blaine's shoulder, and Blaine leans into his mother's side.

An officer comes in and says he has to speak to one of them, and his father begrudgingly follows him out of the door. His mom stays at his side holding his hand and using her other hand to caress his.

Blaine is immediately filled with such a heavy exhaustion that he can barely keep his eyes open. All he can imagine is going home and getting in his parents bed and turning the TV on low and falling asleep between the two of them where nothing and no one can hurt him.

Then he hears the door open, and rushing in comes Paul. His hair is disheveled and his eyes are wide with what look like real alarm and relief.

"Sport," he exhales, running up to Blaine and grabbing him in a tight hug.

Blaine's still holding onto his mother's hand, and he squeezes it tightly as his other hand automatically wraps around Paul's back.

"I missed you so much," Paul sighs. Blaine can feel Paul's tears against his own neck.

"I missed you, too," Blaine says, more tears forming in the corner of his eyes.

He hates himself so much for meaning it.

But sometimes your worst enemies are also your best friends.

* * *

**This is a very heavy story and a very sensitive topic that I do not claim to be an expert on. The continuation of this verse relies heavily on the response of you guys-the readers.**

**If you would like to talk about ANYTHING, such as what the names of the characters mean or why they look the way they do, shoot me a message or an ask. Or if you want to talk about the future of this story, your reservations about it-ANYTHING-let me know.**


	2. When You Leave, Where Do You Go?

**This story contains the molestation of a minor. While the first chapter didn't contain any graphic details, this update is a bit more explicit and does more than just allude to rape. PLEASE CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.**

**If you have any questions, my Tumblr askbox (mailroomorder) is always open, and Anonymous is always enabled.**

**Lastly, FF doesn't allow me to format this the way I want. So if you want to see the original formatting, check it out on AO3.**

* * *

His parents shove him in therapy.

It doesn't really work, because Blaine's biggest secret is locked up so tight that no sleight of hand tricks can get him to reveal anything. But he's sent to therapy anyway. Not that he really minds it much. He and John normally just sit there playing cards or board games and talking about why Blaine felt the need to run away from home.

"I just wanted a break," Blaine says one day.

"A break from what?" John asks, picking up a card and moving his _Sorry!_ piece back four spaces.

Blaine just shrugs and picks up a card of his own.

He doesn't talk the rest of the session about anything important. John prods him a few times, hoping to get more information out, but when he sees it's a total bust he moves on to talking about harmless things, like Blaine's favorite movie and if he likes sports.

"I like to draw," Blaine says, not making eye contact. He almost never makes eye contact. If he has to look John in the face then he tends to stare at his eyebrows, or at the wall right behind his left shoulder.

"Anything in particular?" John asks casually.

Blaine shrugs as he moves his red piece into the Safety Zone.

He doesn't always talk though. Only on good days does he talk, even if it's not about anything important.

On the days his parents can't take him to therapy, Paul takes him. They'll walk in the door together, with Paul's hand like an anchor steady on his shoulder. He'll squeeze it and apply pressure, like an act of solidarity, when they sit down together in the waiting room.

When it's Blaine's turn he'll get up and Paul will stare at him meaningfully and offer him a short smile. He'll pat Blaine on the back, and it feels like a warning. One time in the waiting room he pinched Blaine. It didn't hurt or bruise. But it left a mark on Blaine's memory.

On days when Paul takes him, Blaine stares out the window of the office and into the parking lot, and he imagines all the different scenarios in which he could run away again.

He'll build it up in his head so much, not even listening to what John says as he squeezes his fingers and scratches his head. He'll come up with a plan so detailed and fool proofed that he thinks he can actually get away with it.

John will say his name a few times, wave a hand in front of his face. One time he came over and tapped Blaine's knee. It freaked Blaine out and took him out of his head too quickly, and he stared up at John in question, heart beating out of his chest and eyes blown wide in alarm.

"Where do you go?" John asked as he knelt in front of Blaine. His voice was tinged with kindness and confusion and desperation.

"I'm sorry," Blaine deflected.

On those days that Paul takes him, Blaine really does come up with plans to run away again, the phantom touch on his shoulder present throughout the whole therapy session. But then Blaine will leave the room and be greeted by Paul, and Paul's hand will once again take its rightful place on Blaine's shoulder, squeezing around his neck as they walk back out to the parking lot.

And Blaine will remember

_ as they drive back to Paul's house_

why he can't run away

_ and Paul will take him upstairs to his bedroom_

because there is absolutely no way

_ as Paul slowly undresses Blaine, almost reverently_

that he will ever be able to leave this hell

_ and sometimes Paul will whisper his love into Blaine's _

_ ear, and Blaine will try hard not to cry as he just sits and_

_ waits for Paul to be done so he can make his way to the_

_ bathroom and dry heave into the toilet._

* * *

After coming home from a long month battling villains, Kid Chronic is greeted with a video call from the Soul Crusher.

Kid Chronic receives the video call while sitting in his dilapidated house.

"I'm coming after you," the Soul Crusher grunts. "You won't know when, and you won't know where. But it's not just me anymore. I will send my goons out for you, too. Beware!"

The reason why Kid Chronic lives in a house that's falling to the ground is because when he lived in the mansion, the Soul Crusher found him and burnt it to the ground. So Kid Chronic moved to a new place.

The Soul Crusher found him again.

Since then Kid Chronic has moved countless times. He tends to find abandoned buildings and houses to hide out in instead of nicer places. It's easier to hide when there's no record of where you live. It's also easier to move when there's nothing holding you down. No memories or pictures to keep him there.

Kid Chronic gets the message and immediately scouts the area. He checks out the land surrounding the house he's staying at. He scours the town and looks for booby traps and hidden cameras. He turns on the police radio that he stole and listens to see if there have been any reports of ugly grey monsters wreaking havoc on local towns.

He finds none, which is good. He guesses.

Kid Chronic would rather have the Soul Crusher come get him and demand a fight. He'd rather be attacked than warned an attack is coming.

Now he's sitting on his haunches wearily looking behind his shoulder everywhere he goes. Because Kid Chronic _knows_ an attack is coming. He just doesn't know when.

And this calm before the storm is even more terrifying than any monster could ever be.

* * *

John is young. Or, he's at least the youngest person who works there, from what Blaine's seen. The first time they met John told Blaine that he was twenty-nine and he went to school to learn how to help kids.

"It's my first time doing this," John said casually, smiling at Blaine. "So maybe we can work together."

Blaine sat there and stared at the bookcase behind John.

John also doesn't believe in medicating people. He once told Blaine that he only ever relies on medication as a last ditch effort—if the patient poses a harm to himself or to others. He says he doesn't think Blaine does pose a threat, so to not worry about being dosed up silly.

Yeah, as if that's Blaine's biggest worry.

"It's called talk therapy," John said during the first meeting. "We just talk. About things that are hard or problems you're having. And I can help you work through them. Together, we can make sense of everything."

Blaine doesn't believe him.

A year later Blaine _still_ doesn't believe him, because his life is fucked up and things just start getting worse, and if Blaine thought he hated his six year old self, then he clearly didn't know what hate was.

Because the way he feels now is so much worse.

He's built a rapport with John the past year. And while Blaine never tells John why he ran away, he does use John for help.

"I want to take an art class," he told John one day out of the blue. "But I don't know if my parents will let me."

Because taking an art class might mean having to quit sports. Blaine doesn't like sports.

Paul is still his baseball coach.

John talks Blaine through all the different scenarios that could happen if Blaine talks to his parents. They role play. They work out how Blaine would react to each possible response.

And then Blaine asks his parents.

Who readily agree and sign Blaine up for the first art class Blaine tells them about.

Turns out he can go to that art class _and_ still play baseball. Lucky him.

John doesn't let go of Blaine's love of art, and instead he starts asking Blaine what he likes to draw.

"Comics," Blaine says. "I draw comics."

John convinces Blaine to bring in some of his comics, and they spend a lot of sessions after that sitting at a table looking at the stories and the drawings and talking about them. It's the most animated that Blaine's ever been in therapy. He actually starts _liking_ therapy. He's never shown his comics to anyone before, and John seems totally into them—always asking questions about the villains and the superpowers that everyone has.

_And he actually listens when Blaine talks_. Then he asks more questions.

Blaine never brings the comics when Paul drives him. But he'll sit in his therapy session and tell John he forgot them at home. John will occasionally nudge him into talking, asking about the latest Kid Chronic debacle. Sometimes Blaine doesn't have it in him to talk about it. Other times he'll sit at the table with John and sketch out ideas for later. He never brings them home though, instead telling John to hold onto them.

"I'll get them next time," he'll say, standing up and getting ready to leave.

"Blaine," John stops him this time before he reaches the door.

Blaine turns around and looks at John, not sure what he wants. Their session is over.

"When you leave, is that where you go?" John nods to the sketched out comic on the table.

Blaine nods.

* * *

Paul hates when Blaine closes his eyes, when he crumples them up hard and quick and his nose scrunches up. When he turns his head to the side instead of looking at Paul.

"It looks like pain," he'll say, stroking his palm on the side of Blaine's face.

Sometimes he gets angry and he'll yell and tell Blaine to open his goddamn eyes.

"You make it seem like it hurts!" He'll yell. "Our love doesn't hurt."

Then he'll move hard—or soft—and tell Blaine how much he loves him. Or how he's never going to let Blaine go. How Blaine's lucky to have him in his life.

How _he's_ lucky to have Blaine in his life.

Sometimes he'll kiss Blaine's neck and his collarbone, make his way down to Blaine's naval and further. Other times he doesn't even kiss Blaine, and he'll grunt loud and move fast. He'll make it hurt so Blaine can never forget.

"I never want you to forget."

Blaine used to cry, but Paul trained him out of it. Plus, after a while you just get used to it. It always hurts. Even if it doesn't leave a mark, even if he doesn't bleed—_it always hurts._

But Paul hates it when Blaine closes his eyes, so he started keeping them open.

When he was seven and eight—before he had Kid Chronic to keep him company—he'd stare at the ceiling or the wall, the kitchen appliances or the TV that was turned off. He'd look anywhere but at Paul and he'd keep his eyes open until they glazed over and he could forget about everything going on. He could numb himself.

When he found Kid Chronic it was better, because it was so much easier to numb himself when he could think about something else. When he could focus his mind on something.

When he leaves John's office that day and Paul takes him back to his own place and leads him upstairs

_ Kid Chronic gets a message from a little girl_

and sits him on the bed and tells Blaine how much he loves him

_ and she's asking for help because her parents disappeared_

and Blaine responds, "I love you, too,"

_ Kid Chronic rushes to Abigail and finds her a safe place to stay_

before kissing Paul softly on the lips.

_ and then he goes out searching for her parents._

He lets Paul take off his shirt and then he

_ They were taken by a monster, Kid Chronic finds out._

helps take off Paul's pants before lying down on the bed

_ A monster who steals nice parents from nice kids._

And leaving.

_ Kid Chronic vows to find that monster and defeat it._

"When you leave, is that where you go?" John asks.

"But why?" He asks, again and again at almost every session.

And Blaine's only response is, "I have to save people from the bad guys."

* * *

Things are awkward when he comes home from Columbus.

His mom bursts into tears at random intervals, and his father will find any excuse to hug him or squeeze his shoulders or pat his back—anything to make sure that Blaine is real and there and tangible.

Sometimes when Blaine stays up late he can hear his parents crying in their room. He tries to hug them more often. He reminds them that he won't do it again. And when they grasp him tight and hold his close and beg—_beg_ for the reason why he left in the first place, Blaine's eyes go glassy and he floats away.

It's almost stifling, being home now, because someone is always watching over him. He once went to go outside and read on their hammock, and when his dad saw him walk out the backdoor without announcing his leave, his father freaked and ran after Blaine.

"I'm just going to read," Blaine says, holding up the fantasy novel he brought with him.

"Oh," his father says, face flushed and eyes darting back and forth from their backyard and Blaine. "Okay. Yeah. You do that."

Blaine took his place on the hammock, and five minutes later his father walked outside in shorts and a ratty t-shirt.

"I have some yard work I have to get done," he explains.

Blaine's never felt so smothered.

But his parents aren't all bad. They both take off of work for a few days right after Blaine got home—on top of the two weeks they didn't go to work when he was missing (Blaine still feels guilty about that). When his dad goes back to work his mother stays. She spends two weeks with Blaine before her boss tells her that she has to start coming back to the office.

She then cries to Blaine and apologizes for having to leave him.

"It's okay, mom," Blaine says, awkwardly rubbing her hand where she's grasping onto him. "I don't expect you to stay home with me all summer."

"We think it would be best if you didn't go to camp, Blaine," his dad says, standing behind his mom.

Camp is already over two weeks in, and Blaine hasn't gone yet. He's also not particularly upset at the probability of skipping the rest of it either.

"Okay," he responds.

An entire summer in his house where he can work on his comics? Perfect.

"Paul said he can stay with you most of the time. You two can hang out and go to, to the city," his father stumbles, not wanting to recall memories from when Blaine went there on his own. "See museums. Go to baseball games."

Blaine blanches.

"But I want to go to camp! I don't want to stay home with Paul."

"Blaine, honey," his mother says. "We just think it would be best for you to stay here, where we can keep an eye on you."

"I'm not gonna run away again!" Blaine promises, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes. He pulls his hand out of his mother's grasp and moves all the way back on his bed until he hits the wall. "I want to go to camp! I want to see my friends!"

It's a sore spot for his parents, and Blaine knows it.

He brings it up to John at that week's session because he thinks John might be the only person that can help him. He knows that everything he and John talk about stays between him and John. But every so often they'll have a family session, and after he hears that John is in full support of Blaine going to camp, Blaine _begs_ for a family session.

They schedule it for a week later, and Blaine spends the week up to it at Paul's house while his parents are at work. Nothing happens though, and Blaine isn't sure if that's good or bad.

John starts the meeting by having Blaine explain to his parents why he wants to go back to camp; he doesn't want to stay home all summer, he wants to see his friends, he wants to be around people and go swimming and play games—he wants to feel normal again and not like he has to be hidden away from everyone at Paul's house.

Then his parents explain their reservations, and at the end John gives his two cents.

"I think it will be beneficial for Blaine to be at camp with kids his own age. The socialization aspect is incredibly important. Particularly at this point in his life."

His parents cry a bit and tell Blaine they'll send him to camp, and then they all hug.

It's a big victory for Blaine, spending his summer at camp. It's not always fun and he doesn't particularly enjoy it. But every day he makes sure to come home from camp with a smile on his face and stories to tell his family.

* * *

He does see Paul a lot that summer. But nothing really _happens_.

Aside from light grazes that could be misconstrued as friendly touches, nothing happens. Even when Blaine spends a night at Paul's that summer—the only night he spends there that summer—nothing happens. They don't even share a bed. Paul gives him a light kiss on the lips and leaves Blaine in the guest room, promising to make him breakfast the next morning. Blaine doesn't sleep that night, both out of fear that something might happen and confusion as to why something _didn't_.

Later in the summer, Paul takes Blaine and his family to his lake house for a week. He periodically has barbecues at his home and takes Blaine to museums in the city. He buys Blaine candy and practices baseball with him at the field. But nothing _happens_.

Blaine hates it. He feels like he's six again, except this time he doesn't trust Paul's intentions. He knows it won't last long, and it scares him that he doesn't know when it's coming. When it's going to happen again.

He's jumpy that whole summer. Every time Paul suggests going somewhere just the two of them, Blaine has to stop himself from having a panic attack.

That whole summer, up until school starts, Blaine is on edge.

And when it does happen it's worse than ever.

Because a small part of Blaine really hoped that it would never happen again.

* * *

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